I thought what Dave Poulin said on the HNIC broadcast before this game, it might have been a few games ago, I'm not sure, but, it resonated with me, and it's what I've been trying to say on here for a while.
Work ethic, and working hard, and effort, these qualities, they take time - Poulin mentioned how older veteran teams had many many more playoff series and LOSSES and experiences to learn from. I kind of agree with this.
I said it in a post a couple of weeks ago, you can THINK and truly BELIEVE that you are working hard, but, it's just not as easy as that. There's always another HARDER level to get to, and you get there by failing and learning from the failure.
I still don't think that these group of guys, our TEAM, are incapable of playing HARDER, I honestly think they can.
But, they have to learn how to do that and they'll learn it from failure.
I'd like to see the team stay pretty much as they are.
Just leave them to figure it out, and I think, they'll eventually learn how to play harder.
It's not easy to just play harder because it also requires, when you play harder, that you are playing smart, this is the hard part. Right now, they're in the phase of thinking about how to play smarter, but, they have to get to the 'play harder and play smarter together' phase, and that only comes from experience.
THE SKY IS STILL NOT FALLING